Jake Wallis Simons (@JakeWSimons) is a Telegraph features writer, novelist and broadcaster. His website is jakewallissimons.com. Follow him on Facebook here and on Twitter here. His fourth novel, Jam, which is set in a traffic jam on the M25, is out now.

So Giorgos Katidis gave a Nazi salute by mistake? Give me a break. He was fanning the flames of Greek fascism

Last Saturday, Giorgos Katidis, the 20-year-old Greek footballer playing for AEK Athens, celebrated a goal in distinctive style. He removed his shirt revealing a heavily tattooed torso, raised his right arm, palm open, and bellowed. Nazi salute? No, no. Just an innocent mistake.

After the game, Katidis took to Twitter to explain. The whole thing, we learned, was just a horrible misunderstanding. "I am not a fascist," he clarified, "and I would not have done it if I had known what it means."

Funny, isn't it? The way that pesky right arm just has a habit of popping up at the most inconvenient of moments. The lad's coach – who happens to be German – understood this completely. "He is a young kid who does not have any political ideas," he said. "He most likely saw such a salute on the internet or somewhere else and did it, without knowing what it means. I am 100 per cent sure that Giorgos did not know what he did." Poor little mite.

Thankfully, even the Greek football federation managed to see through Katidis' excuse, imposing a lifetime ban on the player. After all, the far-Right Golden Dawn party in Greece is rather fond of using the Nazi salute at its gatherings. The notion that any young Greek – even an airhead footballer – could have missed this on television, and could be so ignorant of modern European history as to be unaware of the significance of the sieg heil, is nothing short of preposterous.

But what is most galling is the way in which some at AEK Athens are painting its player as the victim. In today's uncertain socio-economic climate, there can be no excuse for fanning the flames of fascism. Katidis should be roundly condemned.